All posts tagged: poverty

In 2008, a quiet stirring and something like a discontent began to stir in Angelo, and me, and even our kids. What purpose might an American family have besides pursuing an American dream? Meet New Covenant Foundation. Meet Ethiopia. Change the World.

“In your generous love I am really living at last! My lips brim praises like fountains.” {Psalm 63, The Message} I am not attractive in the morning. I need a twenty-minute makeover — daily. My eyes are puffy and my hair flaunts a bad version of David Bowie tangled with the Flock of Seagulls’ wings. Perhaps a full night of snoring contributes to the mess. I’ve never awakened looking refreshed and dewy. Yet, in spite of my inability to be Sleeping Beauty my sweet husband brings me coffee, love in a cup, and says, “Good morning, honey! I brought your coffee!” and I feel all princessy. My IQ is dependent on coffee. There is a direct correlation between coffee and my ability to think. In the morning brain is fuzzy, furry, stuffed with the down of sleep until I get a few gulps of the good stuff (Yirgacheffe, from Ethiopia). I’m not a coffee snob, but I do like a decent cup of coffee. And, I like it delivered to me, with more than a …

I stumbled across an interesting debate today, on Rachel Held Evans’ Sunday Superlatives regarding the effectiveness and ethical interests of NGOs and ministries sending writers or successful bloggers to developing countries to report back and tell the stories of the organizations and the people they serve. This practice already has a label: poverty tourism and a bevy of opinions in a hovering stormcloud. Is it asking for trouble, exploitative or downright wrong for writers to experience a foreign culture, observe a work of assistance, training or sharing of the gospel to “the least of these” and to report from the field, telling the stories and providing a catalyst for a population to respond?

“He leaned on the top of his walking stick and worshiped God.” {Hebrews 11:21} Darkened by layers of skins and blankets, his tent felt cool, despite the irrepressible heat of the desert. Here and there strands of sunlight pierced through cracks in the coverings and like gleaming pillars, stood as sentinels around the temporary room. There he stood, ancient as the desert that birthed him, leaning upon his cane and with a whisper spoke the future over Joseph’s sons, his grandsons. He passed the paternal words on to his sons, his earthly possessions were no doubt divided and Jacob, the last of the trio of the Hebrew forefathers, was empty-handed leaning on a walking stick standing barefoot on an animal skin floor. One hundred forty seven years old. Finally empty handed. Finally worshiping God. Jacob had become an old man. Illness and age moved in and set up residence in his body. He was in Egypt, a foreigner there, yet welcomed by the Egyptian government because of his son, Joseph’s, preeminent position just beneath King …